American Experience (1988–…): Season 18, Episode 12 - Annie Oakley - full transcript

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One summer afternoon in 1922,
a petite, elegant woman

led a procession into
a packed arena on Long Island

for what would be her last
big shooting exhibition.

Even at age 62,
Annie Oakley never missed.

She was one of the greatest
sharpshooters of all time,

thrilling crowds
across America and Europe,

feted by princes and presidents,

the first American woman
ever to become a superstar.



Yet Oakley's beginnings
were more than humble,

her childhood horrific.

But she had built a career
doing what she loved

and excelling in a man's world.

And when all she had worked
for nearly came crashing down,

she waged the most intense
battle of her life,

determined never to fall back
into the crippling poverty

she had known, determined
to save her reputation.

Underlying everything
that Annie Oakley said or did

was an anger
that I think was founded

on the injustices
of her own early life...

a hatred of everything
that was wrong,

everything that stood in the way

of a person being able
to realize herself.

Late in 1865, a fierce blizzard
swept across the plains

of Indiana into western Ohio.

Phoebe Anne Moses,
the fifth surviving child

in a Quaker farming family,
waited for her father

to come home from the mill,
14 miles away.

It was midnight when Jacob Moses
finally returned.

His hands were frozen solid,
his speech gone.

He never recovered.

Jacob died in March.

Phoebe Anne... Annie...
Was not yet six years old.

The family soon lost the farm.

Bills piled up.

They were destitute.

To ease the burden,
Annie's mother sent her to live

at the county poor farm.

Soon, she was hired out
to work as a live-in helper

for a family
in a neighboring county.

Everyone thought
this was going to be

an improvement,
but it turned out to be

absolutely nightmarish
situation.

She never mentioned their name
again in the rest of her life.

She referred to them
as "the wolves."

They locked her in closets.

They worked her half to death.

One day, the farmer's wife,
the wolf, Mrs. Wolf,

because she fell asleep while
she was doing some darning.

Suddenly, the She-Wolf
struck me across the ears,

threw me out into the deep snow
and locked the door.

I had no shoes on.

I was slowly freezing to death.

So I got down on my knees,
looked toward God's clear sky

But my lips were frozen stiff,
and there was no sound.

If she was sexually abused,
we don't know.

She certainly
was physically abused.

She talks about
welts on her back.

She talks about being a slave.

I think Annie's experience
with "the wolves"

leaves such
a deep impression on her

that maybe it's
some kind of shame.

And I wonder if that shame
is so deep in Annie

that it influences
the rest of her life.

Annie endured two years
with "the wolves,"

forced to help
her own family survive

by being one less mouth to feed.

Then, one day in 1872,
12-year-old Annie Moses

She ran away, slipped
into a crowded railroad car

and made her way back
to Greenville.

Her mother was still unable
to support another child.

Annie went back
to the poor farm,

where she earned her keep
working as a seamstress.

At the age of 15, she finally
returned to her mother.

Susan Moses had remarried,

but the family was still
desperately poor,

and a mortgage loomed
over their heads.

Instead of going to school,
Annie taught herself to shoot.

With her father's
old cap-and-ball rifle,

she headed
for the woods to hunt.

Soon, she was selling
hampers of quail

to Katzenberger's General Store
in Greenville.

Young Annie was now
the family breadwinner,

earning a living with her gun.

She was a market hunter
and turning a very nice profit.

Certainly not something
that was at all appropriate

for a woman to be doing
in that time and place.

Eventually, she saved up
enough money

to pay off the $200 mortgage
on the family farm.

And her prowess with a shotgun

was becoming known
around Greenville.

In the 1870s, shooting well was
an important skill for a man,

and shooting contests
were a favorite spectator sport.

Sharpshooters traveled
the country,

betting on their ability
to perform feats of marksmanship

and challenging all comers.

Shooting was
of such immense popularity

Doc Carver... "Evil Spirit of the
Plains" is what he was called;

Captain Bogardus,
who eventually had four sons

And people were flocking
to see shooters like this.

One such shooter
was Frank Butler.

An Irish immigrant
in his mid-20s,

Butler was just starting
to make a name for himself

He was traveling through
southern Ohio one fall,

claiming he could
outshoot anyone around.

Frank is staying
in a hotel in Cincinnati,

and he starts talking
with a bunch of farmers.

The farmers say, "Hey,
we have someone in our county

"who's a really good shot, and
we're going to bet 100 bucks

that this person can beat you."

Butler laughed,
but he needed the money.

The match was on.

Frank Butler, this already
professional shootist,

shows up for this match

with hundreds
of people watching,

and who is it that comes as his
opponent but a 15-year-old girl

who was only five feet tall
and weighed 100 pounds.

"The moment she appeared,"
Butler recalled,

"I was taken off guard."

Annie's fir■t shot was a hit.

Both shooters
hit 24 birds in a row.

Then, Butler missed.

"I stopped for an instant,"
Annie remembered.

I knew I would win.

And she did.

The loser was instantly smitten.

He offered Annie
tickets to his next show.

He must have seemed

to her like a man of the world.

That's the only way
I can think of it.

You know, here she's lived her
whole life in the Ohio woods,

and here's this man
who's with the circus.

He's been on the variety stage.

It was chemistry.

He made himself
appear safe to her.

He clearly admired her.

He sparked and courted her
as few of us

have ever been sparked
or courted

and every one of us would like
to be by someone,

and she was lucky to find him,

and I think he knew
he was lucky to find her.

Frank Butler was Annie's ticket
out of Greenville.

They soon married.

While Butler and his new
shooting partner John Graham

performed
on the variety circuit,

Annie stayed in the background.

That was about to change.

Butler and Graham were playing
a theater in Springfield, Ohio,

when John Graham
suddenly fell ill.

Annie filled in,
holding the targets.

That night Frank kept missing,

until a jeering spectator
shouted:

Let the girl shoot!

Frank obliged.

Annie hit the targets
every time...

much to the delight
of the raucous crowd.

"Butler and Graham"
soon ceased to be.

Mrs. Butler took a stage name,

borrowed from her paternal
grandmother: Annie Oakley.

When the shooting team of Butler
and Oakley hit the road,

traveling entertainment
was in its heyday.

Here you are, little lady,
and thank you, madam...

Circuses, theater companies
and vaudeville acts

traveled the country,
playing venues

from outdoor arenas
to smoky saloons.

All right, folks, step right up.

For Annie and Frank,
it was an exhausting life

of noisy train rides, seedy
hotels and one-night stands.

Their shooting act
might be sandwiched in

between a bawdy songstress
and a scantily clad acrobat.

Variety was a largely male-
oriented form of entertainment.

There was a great deal
of double entendre in comedy.

There were suggestive lyrics
in songs,

and there was a good deal
of semi-nudity.

The acts could be
a tad salacious.

It was the Victorian Age.

Annie Oakley,
the Quaker girl from Ohio,

feared being thought
a loose woman.

She resolved
to set herself apart,

both in manner and in dress.

She began wearing an outfit that
completely covered her body:

a calf-length skirt,
long sleeves and leggings.

It became her trademark.

She made her own costumes.

It was part of her desire to
control her self-presentation.

She could move easily in them,
and yet she looked...

she looked respectable;
she looked childlike.

Frank soon realized that
Annie was the main attraction

of "Butler and Oakley."

In a remarkable reversal
of 19th-century roles,

Frank Butler became
Annie Oakley's assistant.

I think Frank Butler understood

that she had
a kind of star quality

that he didn't want
to overshadow,

and Frank Butler didn't have
a problem with that.

I think he adored her.

I think he also
was a savvy businessman

who understood
that she was pretty,

she was ladylike,
she was petite.

She would do
what needed to be done

to make that rise to the top,

and he didn't want
to get in her way.

As a matter of fact,
he understood that,

for the two of them,
the best thing possible

was to let her take the lead.

In 1884, Butler and Oakley
landed a 40-week job

one of the biggest traveling
shows in the country.

All right, ladies
and gentlemen, step right up.

Here they are...

Finally, they had steady work

with a clean,
family-oriented show.

But circus life was hard
and the pay unreliable.

When the season ended
in New Orleans that December,

it looked as if Frank and Annie
would have to go back

to a life of one-night stands
and unsavory characters.

The circus season is ending
the very week

that "Buffalo Bill's Wild West"
comes to New Orleans

and it's like, "Wow, the circus
is ending, we need a job,"

so they ask Cody if they can
come on with his show.

To Annie, it seemed
like a dream job:

Buffalo Bill Cody's show
was the first of its kind,

a re-creation of the West,

featuring the finest performers
in the country.

But Cody didn't need
Annie Oakley.

He already had a star shooter.

He has Captain Bogardus, who is
like this really famous shot,

champion of the world.

He's very well known.

And so Cody turns them down.

It's not that she was a woman.

There were, after all, already
Indian women in the show.

Cody had worked with women
in the theater.

There were just not the dramatic
elements in the show yet

that could make use
of a woman like Annie Oakley.

The Butlers reluctantly
headed north,

back to the variety circuit.

Then fate intervened.

Buffalo Bill's steamer sank
on the Mississippi River.

Captain Bogardus lost
all his shooting equipment

and quit the show.

Frank and Annie promptly wired
Cody, asking for an audition.

Buffalo Bill was skeptical.

The girl was asking
for too much money.

And Cody, a champion
sharpshooter himself,

didn't think such a tiny woman
would have the endurance

to perform night after night.

Still, he agreed to a tryout.

As she was practicing
in an empty stadium,

Annie noticed a man in a fancy
hat standing by the grandstand

staring at her.

Suddenly he ran over, shouting,
"Fine, wonderful.

Have you got some photographs
with your gun?"

The dapper gentleman was Cody's
business manager, Nate Salsbury.

He hired Oakley on the spot.

"Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show
was a lavish spectacle.

Part melodrama...

Part circus...

Part rodeo.

It offered a taste of life
on the old frontier

to an America that was rapidly
industrializing.

In the crowded urban centers
of the East,

people flocked
to Buffalo Bill's show,

eager for a glimpse
of the Wild West.

The whole world was fascinated
with the West,

and as it was becoming settled,
those elements that were seen

as the foundation
of America's uniqueness...

The rugged individualism
and the adventure

and the conflict with Indians
and with... and with buffalo

and all of those reckless parts
of America's past...

Seemed to be coming to an end.

Buffalo Bill
was a representative,

a living representative
of that story,

And it's that adventure that
he put into his Wild West show.

Audiences saw
the real stagecoach.

They saw real soldiers.

They saw real Indians
and cowboys.

There were horses;
there were steer;

there were live buffalo.

It was into this roiling
microcosm of the Wild West

that Annie Oakley,
the little girl from Ohio,

first stepped in April 1885.

Cody placed her low on the bill,

but she soon became
an audience favorite.

She tripped into the arena;
she didn't walk in.

She blew kisses; she waved.

She was, like, animated, alive,

like this sweet person
but with this big bang gun.

She starts off slow...
One ball, two balls.

Glass balls, which,
when they're hit,

they explode
and feathers fly out.

Frank would toss up one,
and then two at a time,

and then three at a time.

Then Annie Oakley
would toss them up herself.

She'd toss two or three or four
target balls in the air,

grab a shotgun,

shoot two, grab another,
shoot two more.

And she could hit all three

before any one of them
would reach the ground.

And then she'd go to six.

Her act gets faster and faster

and faster and faster,
until, you know,

it's just like boom, boom,

things are just being broken
all around.

She could shoot
with her left hand,

with her right hand.

She, like, turns her gun
upside down or sideways

or sighting in the mirror.

One of her favorite tricks
was to have Frank

hold a playing card up,

and she could either shoot
through the heart,

when it was flat against her,
or if it was held sideways,

she could split the card in two,

which is a pretty amazing shot.

Occasionally she'd miss a shot
on purpose,

and then she'd kind of pout,
and this was part of the act,

because she-she could always
hit the target.

She was somebody
who never missed.

I think it's an innate skill.

She said, you know, "Nobody
ever taught me to shoot.

I think it was just... a love
of a gun was just born in me."

It was an instinct and a skill
and an ability

that only persons who have
phenomenal vision,

have a wonderful sense
of timing,

who have hand-eye coordination,

who have good balance and
who were really very athletic,

because a really good shot
has to be a really good athlete.

Once Annie's act started
getting rave reviews,

Cody moved her up the bill,

right after
the opening procession.

That season, 150,000 people
in 40 cities across America

saw something entirely new...

a woman who could shoot
as well as any man

while conveying
a youthful innocence that,

whether Annie realized it
or not, was sexy.

It was the stuff of stardom.

She was this really, uh,

remarkable, remarkable shot.

But what makes her
especially interesting is

that she was able
to combine that

with a... with an image,
with a kind of a vision

of American womanhood
that was provocative,

but that many people
felt comfortable with.

I think what makes
her unusual is the fact

that she could project
a kind of demure, ladylike,

often almost
a little-girl persona,

and at the same time

be very sexual,
very attractive physically.

Annie Oakley's celebrity grew

when the Wild West spent
the summer of 1886

in an arena on Staten Island.

Half a million people sailed
past the new Statue of Liberty,

then rode on special trains
straight to the Wild West.

It was the most popular
attraction ever seen in New York

and Annie was now becoming

as famous as Buffalo Bill
himself.

Frank became Annie's
press agent,

playing on the deep fascination
Easterners had

with the Old West.

He advertised his Ohio-born wife

as "The Girl
of the Western Plains."

And he never tired
of telling the story

of the night Chief Sitting Bull,

the old Sioux warrior,
asked if he could adopt Annie

after watching her shoot
the ace of hearts out of a card

at 30 paces.

When Sitting Bull first saw

she had these
amazing abilities, you know,

to handle a rifle,
and her keen eyesight,

then obviously she had
some endowed power of some sort

that he recognized immediately.

When Indian people look
at such individuals

that have been empowered
like that,

then we have
the greatest respect.

Sitting Bull christened
his new daughter

"Watanya Cecilia...
Little Sure Shot."

For a time he toured with Annie
in Buffalo Bill's show,

but the great chief soon left,

saying he had grown sick
of the noises

and multitudes of men.

When Buffalo Bill's Wild West
opened in Madison Square Garden

in the fall of 1886,

Little Sure Shot became
the darling of Manhattan.

She performed
before 6,000 people,

many in evening dress.

The mistreated, half-starved
little girl from Ohio

had become an icon
of the American West.

There was probably never a woman

in the history
of the United States

who was better equipped
to take up the challenge

of creating a legend,
of creating a myth

of the Western woman,
and then embodying that myth

with the kind
of ladylike demeanor

that would make her acceptable.

It is a remarkable creation
in American legend.

In March 1887,

Cody's Wild West troupe sailed
from New York Harbor,

bound for London, to perform

at Queen Victoria's
Golden Jubilee.

Their ship was
a veritable Noah's ark.

The hold was packed with horses,
buffalo, elk and mules.

Dozens of Native Americans
huddled together,

bracing for the first
ocean voyage of their lives.

And clustered in the bow
were Buffalo Bill,

Annie and Frank, but also
Cody's new discovery:

15-year-old Lillian Smith,

a sharpshooting sensation
from California.

Lillian Smith was an expert
with a rifle, so much so

that Cody himself had said
he would pay $10,000 to anybody

who beat Lillian Smith
at rifle shooting.

Even before they reached London,
Lillian had been bragging.

"Now that I'm with
the Wild West," she declared,

"Annie Oakley is done for."

Lillian Smith tended to speak
very coarsely,

and she was kind of rakish.

She liked to hang around
with the cowboys.

And she had this bodice
that said

"Champion Rifle Shot
of the World."

This was not what Annie Oakley
wanted to see

just as her own star
was on the rise.

Lillian Smith really shows
how competitive Annie is.

She's worried
because Lillian's 15 years old.

Annie is 26 now.

Suddenly, when you start
reading the press releases,

Annie becomes younger
than she has been.

She now starts telling people
she's born in 1866.

Now she's 20, and she's more...

She can compete a little easier

with this new girl
in the Wild West show.

She's practical.

She does what she needs
to survive.

On May 9, 1887,

when the Wild West show opened
in London,

Oakley and Smith were given
equal billing.

10,000 eager spectators
clamored to get in.

"The crush and fight
and struggle

to reach the gates
was something terrific,"

reported
the London Evening News.

In attendance were leading
British intellectuals,

such as playwright Oscar Wilde,

and many of the crowned heads
of Europe.

The English were fascinated
by America as a place

where you could escape the traps

of the modern industrial world.

They saw America as a place
of wide-open spaces,

a place of the free individual
in the wilderness.

And I think Cody's
Wild West show

and Annie Oakley herself spoke
to that mixed appeal

of America to the English.

Annie particularly

was a figure
that Europeans welcomed,

because on the one hand,

she represented
the Wild Western girl,

that image that she had
so carefully created

But at the same time,
she was a Victorian woman

who was there, after all,
to meet the woman

who created the Victorian era.

In June, Queen Victoria herself
came out to watch the show.

After the performance,

Her Majesty beckoned
Annie and Lillian

to approach the royal box.

Lillian seized the moment,
showing off

her Winchester repeating rifle
to the queen,

much to Annie's chagrin.

So, Annie has some
very severe competition.

And it's not really
with somebody that she respects.

Annie says, you know,
oh, Lillian, her ample figure,

her poor grammar...

People would see the truth
of her eventually.

It shows just how much dislike

there was between them.

The most important
shooting event in England

was the annual rifle competition
at Wimbledon,

and the big-name American
shooters were invited

to compete.

Lillian Smith was the first
to arrive.

She shot poorly
and left in a huff.

The next day,
Annie Oakley appeared.

Annie does great,
and she does it with a rifle.

And Lillian's supposed
to be the rifle expert.

Annie's the shotgun shooter.

So she has upstaged
Lillian Smith,

kind of beaten her
at her own game.

Annie becomes the toast
of London.

Some papers even said
she was more popular than Cody.

Buffalo Bill never showed up
at Wimbledon.

"The gallant colonel,"
a London newspaper wrote,

"was not the champion
of his own show."

Another paper compared
his marksmanship unfavorably

with Annie's.

Relations between Annie and
Buffalo Bill became strained,

even as the rivalry between
Annie and Lillian heated up.

A friend of Lillian's
published a letter

in a major American
sporting periodical

claiming that Smith was
the toast of London

while Annie Oakley
had been forgotten.

And it's not true.

But you can imagine
how Annie must feel about this.

There's a huge rift

behind the scenes
in the Wild West,

and the press gets a hold
of this.

Frank Butler and Nate Salsbury
responded

with letters of their own,
defending Annie's reputation.

Buffalo Bill Cody
said nothing at all.

So, who is he siding with,

or why is he not sticking up
for Annie?

What's going on

that he...
that he's not talking?

And, uh, I think
there's a mention

that, um,
Annie at some point says

she has to kind of cut back
on a few of her stunts

in the Wild West arena
because she's upstaging Cody.

So there's probably some kind
of jealousy all over the place.

In late October,

the London Evening News
printed a stunning announcement:

Annie Oakley would
sever her connection

with the Wild West voluntarily

following their final
London performance

that very evening.

After two and a half years
in the bright spotlight

of the Wild West show,

at the very height
of her popularity

and earning power,
Annie Oakley left Buffalo Bill.

Her only public comment
on the matter

was a cryptic statement
published years later.

"The reasons for so doing,"
she wrote,

"take too long to tell."

In the spring of 1888,

the Butlers took their act
to the vaudeville stage.

But the times were changing.

Singers, dancers and comedians

were what audiences now wanted
to see, not sharpshooters.

Annie worked briefly
for other Wild West shows,

but heard that Nate Salsbury
was threatening

She has a really tough year
after she leaves the Wild West.

She goes and works
for a circus; she goes...

in this terrible play,
Deadwood Dick.

She says, "I'm amazed no one
threw carrots at us."

The show closed after a month

when the manager pocketed
the receipts and skipped town.

Then, in February 1889,
much to Annie's surprise,

Nate Salsbury came to call.

Buffalo Bill was planning
a trip to Paris that spring

and wanted her back.

They needed her more than
they thought they needed her.

And so whatever rift
there was is mended.

And interestingly, Lillian Smith
does not go to Paris.

I mean, we don't know, but it
would make sense that maybe

that was part of the bargain.

"I'll come back
if Lillian goes."

Over 30 million people came
to the Paris Exposition of 1889.

Within sight
of the new Eiffel Tower,

Buffalo Bill's Wild West
played to overflow crowds

night after night.

Annie Oakley was soon
the talk of Paris.

The French president offered
"la belle Américaine"

a commission in the army.

The king of Senegal tried
to buy her for 100,000 francs...

"to destroy the vicious lions

who devastate my country's
villages," he said.

Stories describing fictitious
events from her past

were splashed across newspapers
all over Europe and America.

A dime novel
described Annie's thrilling,

if completely fictional,
childhood... in Kansas.

Totally Wild West.

She kills the bad guy,
Darkey Morrow, with one shot.

She kills a bear.

She hits a panther
through the eye.

She saves the train
from the train robber.

She wrestles this wolf,

but she's so brave,
she doesn't even cry out.

They're turning Annie
into a legend.

Oakley's legend
continued to grow,

as she toured Europe with Cody's
show for the next three years.

It was said she saved the life
of the prince of Bavaria,

throwing him to safety
as he was about to be trampled

by a bucking bronco.

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia was
so impressed by Annie's skill

that he insisted on
participating in her act.

He lit a cigarette.

From 30 paces,
Annie shot it away.

"If my aim had been poorer,"
she later said,

"I might have averted
the Great War."

Or so went the stories,

as Annie and Frank
liked to tell them.

They began to tell more and more
tall tales about themselves.

Um, not falsehoods necessarily,
but tall tales.

Um, stories that, um,

that probably had
a foundation in fact,

but, um, but became certainly
better in the retelling.

Certainly better for publicity.

In 1893, the Columbian
Exposition opened in Chicago,

showing off the latest
technological marvels.

Buffalo Bill was not invited

to join this celebration
of modernity.

He set up in an adjacent lot,
and his old-time Wild West show

soon drew larger crowds
than the futuristic exposition.

Oakley and Cody
had become living symbols

of the Wild West, a place
that was fast disappearing.

1893 marks the beginning
of a true nostalgia

for the passing of the West,

um, and certainly
focused attention

on Buffalo Bill's Wild West

as being somehow
a preserver of the old,

a showcase for those values

that people were afraid
were being lost.

The Columbian Exposition glowed
with a new marvel...

And showcased another,
Thomas Edison's kinetoscope,

a primitive device
for viewing movies.

In 1894, Edison
invited Annie and Frank

to his New Jersey studio

for a test of his movie camera.

In dim, smoky images,

Edison's camera managed
to capture Annie's performance.

But the invention also signaled
the end of the Wild West shows.

By the early 1900s, movies
would become the main source

of Western entertainment.

But for the rest of the 1890s,

Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill
were as popular as ever.

All over the country, excited
crowds welcomed their arrival.

They played 131 cities
in 1895 alone.

Then, in the fall of 1901,

their train
left Charlotte, North Carolina,

bound for Virginia.

It never made it.

A head-on collision
with an onrushing freight

killed much
of the show's livestock.

The passengers
escaped with their lives,

but Annie Oakley's spine was
injured, requiring surgery.

She decided the time had come

to leave the arena
and Buffalo Bill.

But it was hard
to forsake the spotlight.

Just a year after the accident,

Annie agreed to star in a play
written especially for her.

Naturally, she played
a Western heroine...

Capturing bad guys,
rescuing innocent victims,

and performing her signature
shooting stunts to rave reviews.

The 42-year-old Oakley
seemed ready for a new career

as an actress, when out of
nowhere, on August 11, 1903,

headlines screamed
of her downfall.

William Randolph Hearst's
Chicago newspapers reported

that Oakley had stolen
a pair of men's pants

to pay for cocaine;

that she was a drug addict,
now doing time in jail;

and that she was in
a "shattered condition,"

"destitute" and "pitiful."

The Associated Press
sends it across the country,

all these papers pick it up,
and Annie is just devastated.

It's like everything she's
worked for her whole life,

to keep this respectable
reputation, is shattered.

The Hearst story was false.

The woman arrested in Chicago

was a burlesque dancer
posing as Annie Oakley.

But the damage had been done.

In Annie Oakley's time, the
threat of the taint of scandal

on somebody
who was an American hero

and who made their fortune
by being an American hero,

that could cost them
their livelihood,

it could cost them
their security.

And I think Annie Oakley
knew at the time

that this newspaper report
came out,

just dragging her
into the gutter,

that this was something that
could absolutely ruin her,

and she was personally
insulted by it,

but I think more,
she knew as a businesswoman,

and a very savvy businesswoman,

what the cost of that kind
of scandal could be

and she was willing
to risk anything

to make sure that
that didn't happen.

She fired off angry telegrams
to the offending newspapers.

"Woman posing as Annie Oakley
in Chicago is a fraud.

"Contradict at once.

Someone will pay
for this dreadful mistake."

Most newspapers quickly
retracted the story.

Many apologized
to Oakley directly.

But that was not enough.

She brought libel suits
against every newspaper

that had published the story.

She just goes after these
newspapers relentlessly,

suing them one after the other.

You know,
"I've got to clear my name."

Uh, "It's not about money."

Actually, you know, Annie,
who cares so much about money,

is spending money
to, uh, hire fancy lawyers

and to prosecute this injustice
that's been done to her.

"That terrible piece
nearly killed me," she wrote.

"The only thing
that kept me alive

was the desire
to purge my character."

Oakley became a woman obsessed.

She crisscrossed the country,
suing 55 newspapers.

It was the largest libel action
the country had ever seen.

She had fought very hard
to earn her own security,

to have a good name
and to be the kind of person

that everybody would see
as a role model

and as a social icon,

rather than somebody who was
just a dirty, poor person,

and somebody who'd be a victim.

She was never, ever going
to be a victim again.

William Randolph Hearst
fought Oakley tooth and nail.

He even sent a detective
to Greenville, Ohio,

to dig around in Oakley's past,

sure he could find something
to discredit her in court.

But there was nothing to find.

Annie approached every trial
with great care.

The courtroom was now her arena.

Were you ever arrested?

Were you ever locked up on a
charge of larceny in Chicago?

No, sir.

Did you say, "I began..."

"The Girl of the Western
Plains,"

now dressed mostly in black
with demure diamond earrings,

her now-gray hair
worn up on her head.

I never made those remarks.

She was reported to exude
an air of "perfect refinement"

"Uncontrollable appetite
for drugs has brought me here."

What effect did the article
have upon your mental feelings?

I felt as though I could never
possibly face an audience

The plaintiff is the
same Annie Oakley...

false, malicious and
damaging to the plaintiff.

Who would turn handsprings
to show off her legs.

- I beg your pardon.
- You're wrong.

We the jury find in favor
of Annie Oakley...

find in favor of
the plaintiff in suit,

Mrs. Annie Oakley Moses...

Oakley won 54 of the 55 cases.

Hearst had to pay her $27,000,

but most of the awards
were much smaller.

After expenses,
she actually lost money

over the course of
her six-year campaign.

To the inaccurate story
in the Hearst newspapers

might seem to us
really excessive.

She spent so many years
contesting

and suing one paper
after another,

for continuing to report an
erroneous and insulting story.

But I think you can understand
her deep concern over that

if you see it in the context

of this need to control
her self-presentation,

to be the person
who would define her own image.

And being ladylike
and being respectable

was such an important part
of that delicate balancing act.

The court battles
finally behind her,

Annie Oakley, now 50,

signed for top dollar
with the new Wild West show.

At first, she packed in
the crowds,

but over time,
the audiences dwindled.

That had happened
to Annie Oakley by 1910

is that she had become
an artifact of the past.

Her fame was founded
on shooting,

her fame was founded on a skill
that had been necessary

in the winning of the West,

but was now no longer
so necessary,

or even so salable.

The whole medium
that had made her a star

had lost its audience
to the movies.

Oakley retired in 1913,

but was uneasy leading a life
of traditional domesticity

in her new home in Maryland.

Annie, Frank joked,
was a "rotten housekeeper."

The Butlers sold the house
and went back on the road...

But now it was for pleasure,
following the seasons

to pursue their passions
for guns and hunting.

Still, Annie Oakley
never left the public eye.

She used her celebrity

to encourage women
to be physically fit

and taught thousands to shoot.

She was a very early advocate

of women's use of firearms
for self-defense.

She believed that
it was thoroughly appropriate

for a woman to have a gun
at her bedside.

And she also argued that women,

especially if they
had to be out and about alone,

ought to think seriously

about carrying firearms
for self-protection.

This is when she starts
sounding like a feminist.

You know, "I think women
should have the right

to protect themselves
and carry a gun."

And she even appears in a
Cincinnati newspaper article,

showing how to hide your gun
under an umbrella

so no one will know you have it,

and then if someone attacks
you, you can pull it out.

Even in retirement,
Oakley walked a fine line

between being the powerful,
self-sufficient woman

and the refined, Victorian lady.

She had once offered to lead

"a company of
50 lady sharpshooters"

to fight in
the Spanish-American War,

but for the most part,
she left politics to men.

Annie Oakley didn't even think
women should be allowed to vote.

Although she did not espouse
women's suffrage

and she didn't talk
about all of the issues

that were important

to the so-called "new women"
of her time,

arguably, Annie was living
a lot of the values

that her feminist sisters
were arguing for.

She was one of the first
really hard-core advocates

for equal pay for equal work.

She just couldn't go
that extra step,

to argue openly that
she agreed with feminists.

Perhaps she didn't see herself
as needing feminism

to achieve what she
had been able to achieve.

One afternoon in 1922,

a charity event drew thousands
to a Long Island racetrack.

The main attraction was
a little woman with white hair.

She skipped into the arena,
adjusted her spectacles

and signaled her husband
of 46 years to begin.

"Miss Annie Oakley was
the hit of the afternoon,"

wrote the New York Herald.

"She said she felt
a little out of practice,

"that during the 16 years
she was with Buffalo Bill,

she never gave a more
entertaining exhibitio"

It would be one of her last.

A car accident later that year
shattered her ankles

and fractured her hip.

She would never again
walk without a leg brace.

It was over now.

Annie had her shooting medals
melted down

and donated the money
to charity.

She was 66 years old
and weakening.

Some believe that
lead poisoning...

Brought on by years
of handling lead shot...

Was the cause.

On November 3, 1926,

Annie Oakley died at home
in her sleep.

It was one of the rare times

that Frank could not be
at her side.

He himself had fallen ill
while traveling in Michigan.

18 days later,
Frank, too, was gone.

They were buried beside
each other in Greenville, Ohio,

not far from
Annie's childhood home.

The career, the achievements,
the magic of Annie Oakley

are so extraordinary
that you cannot imagine

that anybody could have created
a character like that.

It had to be a real person
that did what she did

and had a 66-year life

of incredible experiences
and achievements and adventures

that has no match
in American history.

Simply the cowgirl
or simply the sharpshooter,

she probably would have been
forgotten a long time ago.

But she's such
a complicated package,

constantly challenging us
to think and rethink our ideas

about what it means to be
female in American society.

The great mythology
of Annie Oakley came later

when she became
a subject of popular culture...

Probably best known
in Annie Get Your Gun,

which is a total disruption

of what her career and life
was really like.

Nonetheless,
the real Annie Oakley

created an indelible image

as the self-reliant,
empowering figure

at a time when women
just didn't do what she did.

And she managed to do it

and continue to be
very much the lady.

There's never been anybody
like Annie Oakley.

There's never been somebody who
had both the power of the gun

and this power of a kind
of sweetness and purity

even though she's holding
that gun in her hand.

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